WXN85: NOAA Weather Radio for Fairfield, Iowa
WXN85 is the NOAA Weather Radio transmitter at Fairfield, broadcasting on 162.400 MHz at 300 watts. It carries the National Weather Service Quad Cities office's broadcast and covers 8 counties, each listed below with the SAME code an alert radio needs to wake for that county and stay quiet for the rest.
| Callsign | WXN85 |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 162.400 MHz |
| Transmitter | Fairfield, Iowa |
| Power | 300 watts |
| Forecast office | NWS Quad Cities |
| Status | Normal (NWS data, July 2026) |
Marine radios often label 162.400 MHz as WX2, but WX channel numbers vary by brand - go by the frequency.
Counties WXN85 covers
| County | State | SAME code | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Davis | Iowa | 019051 | NE |
| Henry | Iowa | 019087 | |
| Jefferson | Iowa | 019101 | |
| Keokuk | Iowa | 019107 | SE |
| Lee | Iowa | 019111 | NW |
| Van Buren | Iowa | 019177 | |
| Wapello | Iowa | 019179 | E |
| Washington | Iowa | 019183 | SW |
A county marked with a note (for example partial coverage) is served for that portion only. Program the six-digit code into your radio's SAME location list - the SAME code guide walks through it, and how alert radios work explains what the radio does with it.
A radio that will use this code
WXN85 alerts are only useful inside a radio you can program the s codes above into. Two that do it, for two different jobs.
At home, always on
Midland WR120B. Mains desk radio with battery backup. Program the SAME code from the table and it stays silent until your county specifically is warned, then wakes you.
Check current price (Amazon)In the bag or the car
Midland ER310. Crank, solar and USB, with a flashlight. Receives WXN85 the same as anything else; it does not do SAME alerting. The one still working on day three of an outage.
Check current price (Amazon)Hearing WXN85
Any receiver that tunes 162.400 MHz FM can listen: scanners, VHF ham radios, marine sets, or a software-defined receiver. What those do not do is wake you at 3 a.m. - for that you want a dedicated radio with SAME alerting, covered in the buyer's guide.
Every Iowa transmitter, county and SAME code: NOAA Weather Radio in Iowa. Or look any county up with the finder.
Sources:
- “NWR County Coverage Listings”. weather.gov. Archived from the original on 2026-07-19. Retrieved 2026-07-16. Every figure on this page - frequency, transmitter site, power, operational status, and county SAME codes - is from this dataset. Transmitters move, change power, and go down for maintenance; verify locally before you rely on it.